Winter is the prevalent season for respiratory infectious diseases and patients with mycoplasma pneumonia increases.
Mycoplasma pneumonia is a kind of infectious disease which has high incidence in winter. People under 40 years old belong to the high risk group. It can break out and becomes epidemic in universities, middle schools, primary schools, collective-owned units in small scope. Epidemic regulations exist in Children’s mycoplasma pneumonia, which becomes epidemic every three or four years. Mycoplasma pneumonia takes 15% to 20% in children pneumonia and 15% to 50% in adult pneumonia.
As the common pathogen of mycoplasma pneumonia, mycoplasma is a kind of microorganism smaller than the bacteria and bigger than the virus. The infection sources of mycoplasma pneumonia are the patients and carriers with mycoplasma pneumonia. It is mainly transmitted by droplet and may occur in the whole year, but the autumn and spring are the highest seasons. Except for lesions in respiratory tract, mycoplasma pneumonia can also cause other diseases such as omyocarditis, hepatitis, arthritis, nephritis, meningitis, hemolytic anemia, and thrombocytopenic purpura. This kind of diseases generally have good prognosis, but the latency and the duration of bacteria carrying in respiratory tract last long, which can cause transmission and infection to other people. Consequently, it is quite important to strengthen the prevention of mycoplasma pneumonias.
The latency of mycoplasma pneumonia infection can last two or three weeks. After the latency, most patients would have the symptoms such as pharyngitis, rhinitis, tracheitis, bronchiolitis, fever, headache, intolerance of cold, cough, angina, chest pain, general malaise, and anorexia, etc. The symptoms can last for 1 to 3 weeks. The initial cough would be dry cough, then it becomes the intractable violent cough without phlegm or accompanied by little sputum, especially at night. Infants may have symptoms of asthmatic suffocating pneumonia and hard breathing, Serious ones may suffer from mycoplasma pneumonia.
Diseases should be treated as soon as possible. The prior drugs are erythromycin, roxithromycin, or azithromycin. The earlier they are administrated, the better the effects are. What should be reminded in particular is that penicillin, streptomycin, and sulfonamide are generally ineffective to mycoplasma pneumonia. Owing to the side effects of antibodies such as erythromycin, etc., patients should use the drugs under the doctor’s advice rather than self decision. Mycoplasma pneumonia is infectious, so patients should be isolated during the disease and the treatment should be thorough.
Methods for prevention: do more outdoor activities and practices to strengthen the constitution; pay attention to the cleaning of hands; wash hands with hand-washing solution or soup after coming back home or before dinners; cover mouth and nose with handkerchief or paper when coughing or sneezing to reduce the spray as much as possible; never spit anywhere, to prevent the pollution of pathogen infecting others; infants and patients with poor immunity should try to avoid going to the public places with dense population. In addition, various indoor places including home, office, classroom, etc., should be kept clean and ventilated at ordinary times.